As a garden flower it may well be introduced into shrubberies, but as a border plant it cannot compete with its rival relation, the Hyacinthus orientalis, which is the parent of all the fine double and many coloured Hyacinths in which the florists have delighted for the last two centuries.

Despite its name, the London plane is actually a cross between the American sycamore ( Platanus occidentalis ) and the Oriental plane of central Asia ( Platanus orientalis ), first propagated at the Oxford Botanic Garden about 1670.

Platanus orientalis was well known to the Romans—Pliny devoted several pages to it in his Natural History, claiming the tree grew best with wine "Thus we have taught even our trees to be wine drinkers".

The 84 bird species currently identified in the core zone include one pair of Japanese golden eagles Aquila chrysaetos japonica, three nesting pairs of black woodpecker Dryocopus martius, both of which are designated as Natural Monument and Special Bird species due to their rarity, one pair of mountain hawk-eagle Spizaetus nipalensis orientalis, also a Special Bird species and the rare harlequin duck Histrionicus histrionicus.